all right guys welcome back to unit 14 the civil war uh the american iliad uh just kind of review we've already covered part one the civil war awakening where we looked at the year 1861. we already covered part two 1862 in which we saw the war intensify uh what we want to do now is cover part three the turning of the tide 1863. uh just kind of set this up uh the year 1863 is actually going to represent the high mark for the confederate states of america uh when this year will end uh it will mark the beginning of the end of the confederacy uh but what we want to focus on here in 1863 is how the tide of the war turned against the confederacy and the best way to explain this is to talk about the three big battles that occurred in 1863 now look there were lots of battles that occurred in 1863 but we want to focus on the three big ones because these battles explain to you how the tide ultimately will turn against the confederacy and in favor of the union and when the year 1863 started out it's actually started out very well for the confederacy so let's talk about the uh lead up to probably the most famous battle of the american civil war the battle of gettysburg so we'll do each of these battles we'll briefly talk about the background and the battle itself and then the significance as we go through the battles you don't need to take down notes on every single aspect of the background or every single aspect of the battle what you really want to focus attention on is why these battles were significant but this is the battle of gettysburg so let's talk about the background too you know i kind of already mentioned that the year 1863 started off uh very well for the confederacy and that's because in late 1862 uh the confederate general robert e lee won a gigantic victory over the union army at a battle known as the battle of fredericksburg now we don't have time to talk about it but this was a big victory for robert e lee in late 1862 in early 1863 robert e lee scored a another gigantic victory where he defeated two union armies in what was known as the battle of chancellorsville again we don't get to really talk about it but there's a map if you're interested in you can pause and check it out the battle of chancellorsville interesting enough is consider robert e lee's finest hour it's a battle that is still studied in the u.s war college it really was uh shows you the brilliance uh of robert e lee as a commanding uh general in this war the point here is that 62 ends on a high note for the confederacy 63 begins even better for the confederacy after the battle of chancellors the last time lee felt this good and the last time morale was this high in the confederacy remember this is when lee decided to launch a raid into the north that resulted with the battle of antietam well with morale high and the war going well for the confederacy here in 1863 lee decides to go ahead and launch another raid into the north now his decision to launch this raid into the north was based upon achieving some certain objectives uh once again one of his objectives was to get the war out of northern virginia give that area of virginia a uh some relief but one of the biggest objectives for liam launching this new raid into the north was that he wanted to affect northern morale which after the battles of fredericksburg and chancellorsville northern morale was at an all-time low it was in the dumps uh and what we saw actually in 1863 was a peace movement beginning in the north in which some people in the north were beginning to think that this war was unwinnable and that it might be better for the union to make a peace with a confederacy and so one of these objectives here was to kind of push that northern morale over the edge and embolden the peace movement that's taking place here in the north so in uh the spring of 1863 lee will go ahead and launch this raid into the north for these objectives as his army begins moving north and here's a map here on the left that shows you towards the bottom there fredericksburg and chancellorsville we talked about those you can see that lee's army begins moving north through the shenandoah valley as he moves north the union army has to stay between lee's army and the union capital of washington dc the picture on the right is an actual picture of lee's army moving north through the city of winchester that's an actual picture taken on this march so beginning in the late spring early summer of 1863 lee's army begins moving north and the union army is shadowing lee's army as it moves north staying between lee's army and washington dc the forward units of these two large lumbering armies will literally bump into each other in a small town in southern pennsylvania called gettysburg and that's how this battle is going to come about so i want to focus now just on the battle itself um the battle was a three-day battle one of the longest battles of the war and i kind of want to talk about each day and describe you how to how it went and ultimately how the battle was won and what it all meant all right so the battle uh to start it all off the commanders here at gettysburg of course for the confederacy was robert e lee but for the united states we have a new commander after fredericksburg and after chancellorsville there were two union commanders two different union commanders at both those battles we don't have time to talk about them but because of their defeats in both those battles both of them were fired just like irwin mcdowell the first one and just like george b mcclellan the second union general the fourth union general uh that lincoln appointed was the man on the right there a man by the name of george g mead now he may not look like much in fact he looks a lot like a turtle he may not look like much but he actually was a really good commander and he'll be in charge of the union forces here at gettysburg opposing robert e lee's army so if you remember the first day of the battle was only fought between the forward units of these two great armies so we didn't have a lot of soldiers in and around gettysburg on the first day and the fighting that began that day on july 1st 1863 was just small scale fighting the bulk of the armies are going to arrive later and that fighting that took place on the first day started real late in the day so by nightfall of the first day the union army had in fact been pushed out of the city's the city of gettysburg to a position just south of the town in which they established a a fishhook defensive line south of the city of gettysburg along what is known as cemetery ridge and during the night that's when the bulk of these two armies arrived and both began preparing for the second day of the battle so the first day of the battle is just kind of like a it's kind of like an appetizer uh it wasn't fought by the bulk of these armies it was just the forward units gettysburg was taken by the confederacy but just south of the town the union was now occupying cemetery ridge which was the high ground it was a really good defensive spot during the night that's when the bulk of the two armies arrived solidified their lines and that set up the second day of the battle on july 2nd the second day of this battle robert e lee's army will attack the flanks of both both sides of the union army now the attacks here on the second day by lee's army are some of the most famous engagements of the american civil war if you know your civil war hit we don't get to talk about all of them but if you know your civil war history day two of gettysburg this would have been the attacks on places like culps hill little round top the peach orchard and the famous devil's den the point here for lee was he was trying to turn the flanks on both sides of the union army so that the union army would have to fall upon itself and it would be surrounded by the confederacy now these assaults on the union flanks on day two both failed and at the end of the second day the union still held the high ground and its flanks were still in place this set up the decisive day of this battle and that will be day three now before we talk about day three uh here are some famous pictures of some of the most famous engagements of day two the picture you see on the left some of the confederate dead at the place called known as the peach orchard and then there on the right is the famous devil's den devil's den was an area in which the combat took place in a very rocky area people popping out left and right it was just an absolute nastiness but this was the fighting on day two now day three the decisive day of this battle lee's a plan on day three was to attack the very center of the union lines he believes that his actions on day two made the union army think that the attack would come again on the flanks that the flanks were really weakened because of the day two engagements so lee decided that uh the union probably would have reinforced their flanks and so an attack on the middle of the union lines would likely break the union lines and win the day the problem is is that mead was a pretty good commander for the union and overnight he he understood that lee would likely attack the middle of the lines and so overnight the union reinforced that portion of their lines and what that meant then is that before this day of battle even began lee's army was going to be walking into a bloodbath now you can see on this map right there in the middle of the union lines where you see the names picket trimble and pettigrew this was where the main assault of the confederates would be they would be opposed of course on the other side by a famous union general named hancock this was uh the momentous assault on union lines in day three of gettysburg this was also referred to as the famous pickett's charge it's also known as the high tide of the confederacy the picture on the left shows you the tree line on the battle of gettys on the battlefield of gettysburg the rock wall you see in front of you that was the union line and from that tree line about 12 500 confederate infantrymen would walk across that huge field while being peppered with rifle fire and artillery fire some of the confederates were able to breach this uh stone wall but they were able to not hold this thing and ultimately the attack was repulsed with over 50 casualties in fact pick its own brigade of about 5 000 soldiers was almost completely wiped out and this was the decisive defeat that will end the battle of gettysburg after three days of fierce fighting uh mead was expecting lee to attack again but that attack never came uh on july 4th nothing happened but on july 5th uh lee's army retreated back into northern virginia that is being depicted in the painting on the right and on the left you can see lee's retreat from gettysburg back in to northern virginia by mid-july the lee's army will be out of the north and the gettysburg campaign has come to an end okay so that was the battle of gettysburg we know the background of the battle now why is it significant this is where you want to pay particular attention the battle of gettysburg was significant because it ended lee's second raid into the north and it ended it as a complete failure for all the reasons lee launched the raid he failed it did not embolden the peace movement it did not affect northern morale and he was not able to score that big victory he always seeks on northern soil the other reason the battle of gettysburg was significant is that this was the bloodiest battle of the american civil war now remember we talked about antietam but that was the bloodiest single day this was the bloodiest battle uh this was a three-day battle so it makes sense that it might be the bloodiest uh how bloody was it well combined you had nearly fifty thousand casualties and casualties are dead wounded and missing for the united states 23 000 roughly for the confederacy 24 000. so not only does this end lee's second rate into the north but it's also the bloodiest battle of the american civil war but the big reason i've included gettysburg in here as uh the first battle in which we see the turning of the tide is that lee's law lee's army lost so many men at this battle men that simply were you know it was really hard for him to replace these 24 000 casualties it's easier for the union to do it but it's hard for the confederacy so lee's army as a result of this battle would never be strong enough to take the war to the north it would never be able uh from here on out to go on the offensive ever again that means then that for the rest of the war he's gonna have to fight this uh uh to fight on the defensive what does that all mean well this does not bode well for the confederacy this is going to put the confederacy at a severe disadvantage so essentially gettysburg is significant because it forces lee to just have to sit and wait for the union onslaught which will come in the very next year so this was gettysburg the first of the three battles that show you how the tide began to turn against the union i'm sorry against the confederacy okay uh the second of these battles is known as the battle of vicksburgs that's where i want to turn to next okay so just like we did with gettysburg we'll talk about the background then we'll talk about the battle or the siege the battle of vicksburg is more of a siege and that'll make more sense here in a second and then we'll talk about the significance of it so again you know you don't need to write down every single little detail of the background or the battle or the seeds but pay particular attention to the significance of this this is largely where your quiz and exam questions will be derived from uh okay so background to the battle or the siege of vicksburg since the very beginning of the civil war the union had adopted a strategy to control the entire perimeter of the confederacy the name of this strategy was known as the anaconda plan if according to the union strategist if they could control not only the coast of the confederacy but also the northern border of the confederacy as well as the mississippi river that this would in fact be a snake surrounding the confederacy and if you don't know what an anaconda is that's a snake and an anaconda kills its prey not because of its venom it kills its prey by grabbing it and squeezing it to death and so this was kind of the strategy from the beginning of the war for the union was to control the entire perimeter of the confederacy in an attempt to squeeze it and strangle it and kill it uh and by 1863 uh the coast of the confederacy had been blockaded it had been controlled and the northern border between the north and the confederacy had been controlled so it meant then by 1863 the last portion of the anaconda plan needed was the mississippi river and by late 1863 the map here on the right is a little convoluted but if you can see right in the middle there there's a city called vicksburg and then way down south in louisiana you see another city called port hudson well between vicksburg and port hudson was the only portion of the mississippi river that by 1863 the confederacy still controlled this was a corridor that was vital to the sustainment of the confederate war effort back east through this corridor between vicksburg and port hudson there would have been a lot of beef from texas a lot of reinforcements from texas and louisiana and arkansas that would have been ferried through this corridor so for the union this corridor needs to be shut and you can either take or you can take port hudson take one of them and the other one falls well in late 1862 lincoln instructed the commander of the western union armies uh with a guy we already saw at the battle of shiloh ulysses s grant in late 1862 lincoln instructed grant to make the capture of vicksburg mississippi a priority and that's a picture of vicksburg taken from the louisiana side of the mississippi river that picture was actually taking taken around the time of the battle so by late 1862 lincoln has pinpointed vicksburg as the target and has instructed ulysses s grant to do everything possible to capture the city of vicksburg this proves to be harder than it is you know harder than just simply ordering it beginning in march of 1863 grant will try everything possible to surround the city of vicksburg he had first tried to just march over land uh uh through the north but you can see on this map where it says steals bayou and the yazoo where that entire area is flooded it's a swamp and grant first tried to march his army through there but that failed he then actually tried to dig a canal and you can see right outside the city of vicksburg in louisiana where it says williams grant canal he actually tried to dig a canal to bypass the city uh but that failed as well now why does he need to get you know why why can't he just assault the city well the city is heavily defended he cannot just float his military down the mississippi river bypassing the city if he puts his soldiers on naval ships and floats them past the city of vicksburg his entire army is going to get blown out of the water there's and i'll show you pictures here in a second but vicksburg was a heavily defended city so he's got to find a way to bypass the city to get his army south of vicksburg where the ground was dry and he could march his army uh he finally decides on a plan in which he will march his army through louisiana on the other side of the mississippi river march them south until the land is dry enough to get them across the mississippi river at the same time that his army is marching south through louisiana grant will instruct the u.s navy uh to go ahead and float with with no troops on board go ahead and float by the defenses of vicksburg which they did on uh christmas um uh i'm sorry uh i'm sorry on april 16th uh while a big part i don't know why i was saying chris at a big party was going on in vicksburg so a lot of the defenses were not manned uh most of the union army air union navy got by the city before the firing began now this doesn't really bother grant because these boats you see on the picture they don't have any troops on them so it's okay if you lose a few of them the point here was that the union navy floated by the city came down where on april 30th uh down around broomsburg they ferried the union army across the mississippi river now grant has his army south of the city on dry land he is now positioned to take the city his first thing of action was to to go far east and take the city of jackson mississippi jackson was the supply base for vicksburg once he had taken jackson he has now isolated vicksburg you can see on the map he then begins to move his army west fighting a couple of battles along the way known as battle of champion hill in the battle of big black river bridge point here is that in mid-may he has arrived at the gates of vicksburg but again uh vicksburg is a heavily heavily defended city the confederates are well dug in there are uh magnificent redoubts and artillery pieces all along a defensive line stretching south of the city all the way north of it this is a tall order for ulysses says grant to be able to break these lines and capture the city now that doesn't deter grant when he first arrives at the city or when he first arrives at the defenses of vicksburg he will make uh oh i'm sorry uh so let's go ahead and talk about the battle in the siege now uh grant is gonna make two unsuccessful assaults on the confederate lines and again these are unsuccessful but they can because the confederates are so well dug in the city is so well defended after two assaults on the confederate lines grant decides well i've got the city surrounded why don't i just wait them out what grant decided to do is establish his own siege lines his own uh uh network of of uh of trenches and uh redoubts and artillery positions and what he does is he just decides to lay siege to vicksburg for nearly seven weeks picture on the right there uh this is what the union ended up living in because they're being fired at too for seven weeks and it was living on the back side of the hills in basically what were caves but after seven you know for seven weeks this siege is going to go on at vicksburg no supplies are going to be brought into vicksburg no reinforcements are brought into vicksburg you can imagine what the standard of living will be like in vicksburg food will run scarce we know from reports of citizens that lived in vicksburg that many of them were now living in caves because of the daily bombardments they of course ate all the dogs ate all the cats they ate all the horses uh we know that people were wondering where all the rats they used to see were there's even reports uh that they were eating sawdust and even one report of cannibalism so you can imagine that after seven weeks of a siege the city of vicksburg is uh not in a good way and after seven weeks the commander at vicksburg for the confederacy a man by the name of john pemperton is actually a good friend of ulysses s grant pemberton on july 4th 1863 surrendered the city of vicksburg to the union forces commanded by ulysses s grant and the city of vicksburg has now fallen to the union okay so why is this battle of vicksburg significant again a few reasons this is where i really want you to pay attention uh well the fall of vicksburg was a huge blow to the southern war effort not only will it result in the confederacy losing control of the mississippi river but it was also a huge blow to confederate morale if you remember our discussion on gettysburg that lee retreated from gettysburg on july 4th 1863 the same day that vicksburg fell so imagine if you were a confederate living in the confederacy and you learned about lee's defeat at gettysburg you would have learned them the same day that vicksburg had fallen to the union and this is where it gets interesting while gettysburg gets most of the attention in civil war history vicksburg might have been more important than gettysburg because after vicksburg fell port hudson that only that last remaining city controlled by the confederacy it fell very quickly so that means the mississippi river is now in full control of the union that means the anaconda plan can now be implemented fully and what it will do is sever the confederacy into two armies cattle supplies all that stuff can no longer be moved from west of the mississippi river so this probably was more important than gettysburg and understanding how the tide turned against the confederacy and ultimately why the confederacy lost not only was it a huge blow to southern morale but it was also the the battle that results in the full control of the mississippi river by the union and the full implementation of the anaconda plan and by severing the confederacy in two states like arkansas louisiana and texas they can no longer take part in the larger war effort that's taking place back east and the last reason vicksburg is significant concerns ulysses says grant if you remember george s meade or george g mead was the commander at gettysburg well lincoln ended up demoting mead why well because he wanted me to keep attacking robert e lee even after day three at gettysburg but mead did not do that for that mead was demoted and in his place ulysses s grant is placed in full command of the entire union military a position he is gonna hold until the end of the war okay so the battle of gettysburg battle of vicksburg two of the three battles that take place in 1863 that begin to show you how the tide begins to turn against the confederacy the last battle i want to talk about is known as the battle of chattanooga so let's focus on that one now all right the battle of chattanooga again we'll do the background the battle pay particular attention to why the battle was significant uh all right battle of chattanooga uh if you don't know where chattanooga is it is in tennessee it's right along the border between tennessee and georgia you can see it on this map there now by late 1863 the confederates have established a defensive line outside of the city of chattanooga tennessee that is designed to prevent a union invasion of the deep south the map on the right shows you in blue where the confederate defensive line is it was set along a high ground known as missionary ridge now the picture on the left actually shows you a picture taken after the battle of missionary ridge i'll show you another one here in a second on the next slide in order for the union to bust out of the city of chattanooga and open an invasion route into the heart of the confederacy the union is going to need to dislodge the confederate positions on missionary ridge and here's another photo taken after the battle that high ground back there is where the confederacy had its defensive line it's a very very formidable defensive perimeter for the confederacy now so the point here is that the union is looking to bust out of chattanooga it's looking to open an invasion route into the deep south in order to do that they're going to have to kick the confederates off of the high ground of missionary ridge and that's how the battle is going to come about the commanders at chattanooga of course ulysses s grant but for the confederacy the confederate army uh defending uh outside chattanooga they were commanded by a man named braxton bragg he's probably one of the worst confederate generals of the entire war he only won one battle of the entire war uh he was absolutely incompetent um the only reason he ever kept his job is because he was good friends with jefferson davis but he is in charge of the confederate army here at chattanooga he'll be trying to keep ulysses s grant from winning the winning the battle now on november 25th 1863 the union attack commenced uh and at first it looked as though the union would not be able to dislodge the confederates off of missionary ridge and that's when something interesting happened rather than die union troops just mount a very daring frontal attack straight up missionary ridge that is successful in dislodging the confederates and winning the battle they were under no orders that do it they just simply decide we're not going to sit here and die we're going to we're going to die trying to to take the high ground and they were successful once their lines were broken the confederates on missionary ridge were forced to retreat deeper south back into georgia and we'll talk about what happens to them in the year 1864. so what's significant about the battle of chattanooga a few things number one is that this was a big big union victory it's often times called the soldiers battle because the battle wasn't actually won because of the planning of the high-ranking officers rather it's one because of the sheer determination of the union troops uh a a more recent example of something like this would have been omaha beach on d-day you know those though that is another battle it's not one because of the planning of high-ranking officers it's one just because of the sheer determination of the troops but a more important reason that you should know about chattanooga is that there is now nothing standing uh between the union army at chattanooga and an invasion of the deep south uh with the confederacy now south of the appalachian mountains the union can now invade over open territory into the heart of the confederacy and now this is going to end up leading to sure to a man named william t sherman we're going to talk about him in the next lecture taking the city of atlanta and then ultimately to his famous march to the sea all stuff we're going to handle in the year 1864 in part four the other reason chattanooga was significant is that it snaps the communication lines between the confederate armies operating in the west and the confederate armies operating in the east railroads telegraph lines all that stuff all that stuff had been running through the city of chattanooga for the entire war and the confederacy has now lost this what does that mean it means that confederate armies will have no coordination anymore there's going to be no coordination between confederate armies in the west and in the east they'll be operating by themselves now so chattanooga like vicksburg like gettysburg show you that the tide is turning and it's all taking place here in 1863. this is why this year although it started off well for the confederacy uh it will end with the confederacy beginning to lose the war this is how the tide turned in favor of the union now this concludes part three uh in part four we're going to talk about how the union will take this new turning of the tide and begin to grind down the confederacy and talk about how they ultimately go on to win the war